A Taste of His Own Medicine
by EKBlack
Summary: Your typical fluff-fic: Kotarou isn't feeling so well...


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A Taste of His Own Medicine

A Sono te wo Dokero fanfiction

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This fic is brought to you by third-person-limited POV, a Sono overdose, and strawberry Pocky. Enjoy.

Somehow it was already dark when he left for home from basketball practice. Carefully he navigated around the darkest shadows in the street, keeping to the circles of hazy streetlight when he could. It was very cold, and the wind drove through his coat, school uniform, and sweaty basketball clothes to smite at his very bones. _Great_, he thought, speeding up a little into a half-jog, _I missed Yuto's ride and left my bike at home this morning_. He added as his stomach growled, _I'm also dying of hunger_. About three blocks from home, his head suddenly began to throb. His weary steps became half-hearted shuffles, and right before he reached for the key in his trouser pocket he fainted.

Where had the light gone?

He was shivering in his damp clothing, and his stomach was busying itself by moaning piteously. Or was that sound someone else? Was it Mio? Was Mio hurt? He was choking on something saplike and bitterly slippery as it oozed down his throat. More wailing from his stomach, and hands around his face, cupping his chin and shaking him. It sounded like Mio, calling his name. Was _he_ the one who'd been hurt? Where was Tatsuki (always there when he was hurt, his dark rescuer)? 

Suddenly the light was back, and several faces above him. Again the softly whining whimper, and he cut it abruptly short when he realized that it was himself who was making those sounds. The hands had slipped from his face but rematerialized under his back to suppport him as he feebly sat up. "Kotarou!" One of the wavering faces said, "what were you doing alone out on the street at this hour?" The face was replaced by another, who said, half-angry and half-anxious, "You know better than to stay at practice when you're so sick! You--we were about to call the police! And Tatsuki here--we practically had to tie him to the sofa to keep him from going to look for you!" A third face floated above him, and he gasped as it came into focus as though he had been swinging a telescope at an inscrutable wall of rock and had found the one crevice that shed a thread of light. "Tatsuki!..." he said, and the light grew and grew and grew until it swallowed the faces and he was thrown down a white path, endlessly until he found the dark again.

Someone was feeding him the choking slime again, and he woke, coughing. It was his aunt, who smiled encouragingly as he swallowed the medicine at last. "I'm sorry, dear," she said, "I'm afraid we only had this old stuff for you. Are you feeling better?"

"Er..." _except for what feels to be the charred remnants of my throat, yes_...he cleared his throat before replying, hoping that his voice would be steady enough to prevent his staying in bed the entire day and therefore being bored out of his head and dosed with the expired medicine. "Yeah, mu-uch better." 

"Well..." thankfully, Yuto appeared at that moment and involved her in a conversation regarding her absolutely stunning new skirt (actually older than Kotarou himself). _Thank God_, Kotarou thought as he slipped past, _I gotta remember to thank Yuto sometime._

"What are you doing?" 

"What a nice greeting," said Kotarou, rather raspily, as he dropped down on the front step to put on his sneakers. 

"..." He almost yelped when hands seized his shoes and pried them from his fingers (very carefully avoiding touching him). "What are _you_ doing?!"

"Taking your shoes off. Go back to bed."

"Why?...Hey! Wai--" He was faced with the inside of the closed front door. "Tatsuki, you snobbish, annoying..."he trailed off into a fit of coughing. 

"Kotarou," said his aunt behind him, suddenly, making him jump. "Put on your pyjamas and go back to bed." Her voice allowed no protests. _Tatsuki, I will_ get _you for this._

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Lovely.

Just *cough* lovely.

The blazing sensation in his throat had grown to a wildfire, and each time he had to drink that terrible syrupy medicine it only got worse. On top of it all, he could not fall asleep though his eyes were sore and his body was limp and aching. "Oh Go--ACHOO!" He said, and reached for the tissues on the beside table...to find nothing. Groaning, he swung his hands over the tabletop, only to knock over the large glass of water Auntie had poured him right after the last spoonful of medicine for the night. _Damn!_ He fumbled for the light and brought the glass crashing to splinters on his bare foot. He shrieked.

CRASH.

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What the-- Ohhira Tatsuki flew the few steps to the door of his cousin's room and flung the door open, expecting to see--he wasn't sure what he expected, but certainly not Kotarou sitting on the bed, cradling his foot with one hand and wiping his nose with the other. He stood for a moment in amazement as blood fell to the floor, torn between relief that Kotarou hadn't been kidnapped or murdered and a rising panic as more blood hit the floor and Kotarou started to sway where he sat. "Kotarou!" He shouted, finally overcome by alarm, jumped forward and cupped his hands around the wounded foot, instinctively not touching the skin. Kotarou had fallen back onto the bed but was still conscious, judging by the noise he made when Tatsuki pressed down on the narrow vein that passed over the arch of the foot in an attempt to slow the bleeding. "Oh God," said Tatsuki as he daubed at the blood with his shirt sleeve, picking at the stilettos of glass among the thickly drying red as Kotarou struggled, whimpering. 

That was how Tatsuki's parents found them; the father was more hysterical than even Kotarou, rushing around with rolls of bandages and tweezers for extracting the glass and antiseptic lotion (expired like the cough syrup); Kotarou's aunt was somewhat more subdued in her reaction, and it was she and Tatsuki who cleaned the cuts and bandaged them, despite Kotarou's struggling. At last, when they had put the boy back under his covers and had wiped away even the bloodstains on the floor in the darkest hours of the morning, the three made to leave the room, Ohhira-san with trailing strips of unused bandages behind him as he went back across the hallway to his own bed, Kotarou's aunt yawning and advising at least a few hours of sleep for her son before school. 

Tatsuki, however, did not go back to bed. He forced himself to stay awake, to guard the precious creature who slept mere feet away. _In case he decides to try to get up again_, he told himself, knowing all the while it was because of the strange tie he'd always felt between them. The strange bond that wasn't brotherly love or any kind of similar emotion. He half-smiled to himself as the rumors abounding at school flashed in his mind; those people who were bored with their company suggesting a less than platonic relationship between Kotarou and himself. _They still don't understand me. Even_ he _doesn't understand me._ He sighed. _He probably won't ever understand me._

In his dreaming Kotarou dimly remembered something that had happened--it seemed to him that it had happened long, long ago; he had killed Tatsuki. He had put out his hand to the warmest part of all the coldness, the single passionate heat of the pumping heart, and then there had been blood and the sickening weight of death against his shoulders. The weight all the more sickening because it was _Tatsuki_. And he had to save Tatsuki, and--he could not remember and so awoke to the white light of morning. 

Panting he sat up, or tried to sit up. His entire body felt horribly stiff and weak, and his right foot throbbed. He vainly tried to recall why it hurt so badly and only found the hazy afterimage of a fire consuming his throat. But in place of the fire was a coolness such as the earth gives off after a downpour. He managed at last to twist upright by pushing on his elbows, and gaped at Tatsuki, lying quite asleep on top of him. For a while he was at a loss, then with usual impetuousness shook the sleeping shoulder as hard as he could. "Wake up!" _*\\\ He jumped when Tatsuki sat abruptly up, apparently having been awake the entire time. They stared at each other until Kotarou started to scramble from the bed, upon which he was grabbed by a pair of hands and not-so-gently sat back down. "What's with you?"

"Remember your foot."

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How does he know?... Kotarou inspected his bandaged foot. _Did he?..._ Tatsuki's face was as impassive as always, and the indignation crept back. _Well, he could at least be nicer!_ _And why was he lying here?_ He stood with great dignity and hobbled to the bathroom, unimpeded by Tatsuki, who watched him carefully. _Let him have a taste of his own medicine._

He still doesn't understand. Tatsuki inhaled deeply and stood also, heading for his own room. _The silly ungrateful git. _His hands still tingled from the power that had flowed through them, the healing power that he had been given by the silly ungrateful git. _Silly ungrateful git with a terrible memory_, he smiled to himself, and closed the door.

Ah, imagery, funkiness, and all that. How delightful. "Let him have a taste of his own medicine", indeed. *snorts*

-ekb-


End file.
